


lions, tigers and dragons, oh my

by mdmaverickk



Series: Roll a D20 [1]
Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-01 22:08:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13304313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mdmaverickk/pseuds/mdmaverickk
Summary: They’re an unconventional bunch for an adventurers’ guild, but highly effective in their ways, nonetheless.Jeongyeon thinks that they need a catchy moniker to go with their newfound fame. Dahyun’s personal favourite is “Jihyo and Her Merry Band of Idiots”.Jihyo disagrees, of course.





	lions, tigers and dragons, oh my

**Author's Note:**

> First fic in years can I get a what what
> 
> aka comments and criticism are greatly welcomed. :>
> 
> This entire thing was inspired by my 250+ hours on Skyrim. Go figure.

Jihyo couldn’t remember the last time she had the entire guild in the same room for a pre-mission briefing. It wasn’t often that they needed more than three people for a job, but it also wasn’t often that they were asked to take out one of the largest bandit camps of the region. 

“Odds are that we will be outnumbered, so we will have to rely heavily on strategy here,” Jeongyeon began. “Chaeng, Mina, do you have an idea of numbers?”

“We’re estimating just over a hundred, roughly,” Chaeyoung replied. The two girls had a knack for staying out of sight, and were therefore the de facto reconnaissance specialists of the group. “It looks like they’ve built a three-tiered camp into the side of the mountain, out of the western flank. It won’t be easy for us to just knock down the front door and call it a day.”

“There’s a part of the eastern flank that looks scalable, but only just so,” Mina continued, ever so quietly. “Perhaps the more agile of us could make it up the side of the mountain and surprise the uppermost section of the camp.”

Jeongyeon nodded. “Splitting into two groups so that we can pincer them in seems like the most viable option.”

“I heard a rumour while I was in town getting supplies,” Momo chimed in. Jihyo was surprised that she was paying attention at all.

“The townsfolk were saying that there's a dragon's den on the far side of the mountain, which would put us right in its range if we traced the eastern valley.”

An audible gasp sounded from the corner, to which Jihyo responded almost instantly. 

“Tzuyu, we can't take the dragon home with us. Even if you ask it nicely.”

The girl looked positively heartbroken. There was really nothing wrong with the rabbits, deer and field mice that Tzuyu brings back to camp on a daily basis - Jihyo finds them adorable, even - but she draws the line at anything larger than a bear.

Tzuyu had her puppy-dog eyes out in full force, topped off with a pout and a subtly quivering lip. Jihyo struggled to ignore the tug at her heartstrings.

“Do you remember what happened the last time you brought home a dragon?”

Jihyo remembered a lot of fire, some brimstone, and the sheer fury of one Momo Hirai when she realized that the beast had eaten all of their supplies.

“Technically it was a wyvern, not a dragon.”

“No means no, Tzuyu.”

Dahyun gave her a consoling pat on the head. Jihyo considered the matter settled.

“Right, okay, no dragons,” Jeongyeon shook her head. “Where were we?”

-

This was not going according to plan.

The idea was straightforward enough. The brute strength of the team would storm the lower sections of the camp as quickly and quietly as they could. The others would scale up the mountain and take out the leaders in the uppermost reaches first - cut off the head of the snake, and the body will die. And if that failed, they had at least three back-up plans and ten possible escape routes for each of them. 

What they hadn’t accounted for, however, was Sana tripping on absolutely nothing, falling out of the bushes and attracting the attention of a group of bandits just as they approached the front gates of the camp.

More precisely - Sana had tripped and landed on a stray tree branch, which launched a rock fast enough to kill a bird nesting right above them. The poor thing fell straight out of the tree and into Nayeon’s hair, who then proceeded to scream bloody murder.

Jihyo makes a mental note to never assign the two to the same mission again, if they made it out of here alive.

“Watch your six!”

Jihyo spun around at Jeongyeon’s warning, bringing her shield up to counter an axe and slamming back against the bandit who wielded it. She dug her heels in, darting forward and thrusting her sword cleanly across the man’s abdomen. His body spun around with the force of her blow, falling to the ground with a thud. Another bandit rushed forward to take his place, only to be blindsided by two of Sana’s many knives to the neck.

They were boxed in now, just barely holding out thanks to Dahyun’s healing spells, but there was only so much one cleric could do. No matter how many Jeongyeon took out with a single cleave of her sword, or how many were engulfed in Nayeon’s flames, more kept coming still, with no end in sight.

But, hell, if she was going to go down, she was taking at least ten of these assholes with her. Jihyo rammed her sword into the gut of the bandit in front of her, throwing his body off and bowling over another three. She charged forward with a cry, spinning and swinging and slashing in a blur.

A glint of metal caught the corner of her eye. She felt the bite of a sword tearing into her side before she could react, held by a woman that had come up far too close far too quickly. The angle was all wrong, she couldn’t bring her sword or shield around to parry without twisting further into the path of the blade. She took a deep breath, said a little prayer, and tried in vain to move out of the way-

Only to see the bandit gurgling with her throat slit, the offending sword clattering to the ground. She felt warm hands holding her up before she could see them, a girl appearing out of thin air before her.

“Momo!”

“There you are! We heard Nayeon and came running,” Momo brought Jihyo to her feet with an arm around her waist. “Mina and Chaeyoung are right behind me.”

And right on cue, the bandits swarming around them started dropping like flies, a volley of arrows and crossbow bolts raining down upon them. 

“Where’s Tzuyu?”

Momo looked confused, doing as Momo does. “Tzuyu? Shouldn’t she be here by now? She took off ahead of us when we heard the scream.”

Jihyo was about to respond when she felt something stirring about her. The fighting had stilled. Almost everyone - her teammates and bandits alike - had stopped to peer up into the sky, fingers pointing and mouths agape. There was a faint thudding in the distance, like the flapping of a large flag in the wind. 

And then, a great, big roar.

“Dragon!” A bandit screamed. Momo was the first to react, darting away with Jihyo in the blink of an eye. Teleporting always gave her this queer feeling of vertigo, but Momo guided her with a steady hand as they scrabbled for shelter beneath an overhang in the side of the mountain.

And not a moment too soon. A stream of white-hot flames carved through the space that they had been standing just moments ago, the dragon leaving a trail of destruction and burning bandits in its wake as it soared across the camp. A moment of panic seized Jihyo as she realized that she had left her teammates behind, but in the midst of the inferno, she spied a telltale blue shimmer of magic. Dahyun and Nayeon had thrown up a barrier, with Jeongyeon and Sana safely cocooned within.

“This is a good time to get out of here, don’t you think?”

“Quite possibly,” Jihyo agreed. “But how are we going to avoid that thing?”

Said thing in question had now landed in the lower tier and seemed to be destroying everything and everyone within its reach. The dragon reared up onto its hind legs with a ghastly snarl, and Jihyo caught sight of an oddly human-shaped lump right between its wings. From this angle, it almost looked like a young girl with long brown hair and a bow strapped to her back-

“You have got to be kidding me.” 

Jihyo was gobsmacked. Lo and behold, there Tzuyu was, seated atop the massive beast. She could make out the huge grin on the girl’s face, clearly having the time of her life hitching a ride on a dragon.

On second thought, it seemed fitting for her character. Laughing and smiling with glee as the world burned around her.

The rest of the team had regrouped around her position now, waiting for her command. “I guess we’re not really losing, then?” Dahyun asked.

“I guess not,” Jihyo shrugged. She wasn’t one to look a gift dragon in the mouth. “Let’s go!”

-

It was a rather formidable sight. 

The hulking beast that had just taken out half of the bandit camp in the blink of an eye towered over them, glaring at the group with a cold, piercing gaze. Tzuyu assured them that it was perfectly safe, but Jihyo was well aware of the fact that a well-placed swipe of its tail would knock them all out instantly.

(“Safe?” Chaeyoung grunted as she arched a lightly singed eyebrow. 

Tzuyu insisted that the girl was just too good at camouflage - she hadn’t seen her in that tree that her dragon had set alight.)

But there Tzuyu stood, calm and poised as ever, hand outstretched and gently scratching the scales at the base of the dragon’s neck.

Of course Tzuyu was petting a dragon like an oversized puppy. Jihyo wasn’t even remotely surprised at this point.

“Thanks Mrs. Dragon. That was a lot of fun.”

The dragon let out a bloodcurdling roar, and the group collectively shuddered. Tzuyu merely giggled in apparent agreement with the beast.

“I know! I’m glad that you feel safer now that those mean bandits are gone. It must be hard raising two kids alone.”

The dragon snorted. Tzuyu nodded empathetically.

“They must be a handful. You’d best get back to them. Thank you for helping us out.”

The dragon let out one last shrieking cry and took to the skies. The gust of wind from the take-off swept most of the group off their feet. All except for Tzuyu, who stood there waving enthusiastically as the dragon disappeared into the horizon.

-

The town had paid them handsomely for their efforts. For a moment, Jihyo had considered splitting the gold with the mother dragon (they did owe her, after all), but Tzuyu informed her that treasure was really not all that attractive to a dragon. It’s a common misconception, she explained, and they much preferred being presented with a whole cow as a reward.

“I can relate to that,” Momo said.

Jihyo thought it an appropriate moment to change the subject.

**Author's Note:**

> If Tzuyu was the Dovahkiin, she would probably help Alduin destroy the world.


End file.
